An article published in the journal “Astronomy & Astrophysics” reports the discovery of an exoplanet candidate with a very high probability of existence, a super-Earth designated as KOI-456.04 whose estimated year is slightly longer than the Earth’s that orbits Kepler-160, a Sun-like star. A team of researchers led by René Heller of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Germany, analyzed old data accumulated by the Kepler space telescope using a new method based on the detailed physical model of the stellar brightness variation instead of the classic one based on the search for the tiny drops in brightness that occur when the planet passes between the star and the telescope. The analysis also led to the discovery of another exoplanet candidate designated as Kepler-160 d.

An article accepted for publication in the journal “Astronomy & Astrophysics” reports the discovery of a super-Earth in the system of HD 164922, a star that’s slightly smaller and slightly less massive than the Sun. A team of researchers led by Serena Benatti of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, Palermo, used the HARPS-N spectrograph installed on the Galileo Telescope, on the Canary Islands, to collect the data which, together with others previously collected with other instruments, allowed to discover the exoplanet designated as HD 164922d. The discoveries of exoplanets are increasingly made thanks to software that performs an automatic analysis of data collected by various telescopes, but in this case it’s the prize for the tenacity of astronomers who put together the data of years of observations conducted with various instruments.

An article published in the journal “Astronomy & Astrophysics” reports evidence of the existence of a planet in formation in the protoplanetary disk surrounding the young star AB Aurigae. A team of researchers led by Anthony Boccaletti, of the Observatoire de Paris, PSL University, France, used the SPHERE instrument mounted on ESO’s VLT in Chile to find traces of what could be a planet. SPHERE takes real photos of the objects, so if the discovery was confirmed it would be the first direct evidence of a planet seen while it’s forming.

An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports a study on the alignment of the ultra-cool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 with its system’s 7 planets. A team of researchers led by Teruyuki Hirano of the Tokyo Institute of Technology used the Subaru telescope on Mount Mauna Kea, Hawaii, to observe that system not finding a significant misalignment of the planets with respect to their star. The astronomers who conducted the study warn that the measurements’ accuracy is not enough to completely rule out a small misalignment, but the result is significant in the study of the evolution of very small stars’ planetary systems.